Imagine this scenario. You have your own dreams and ambitions,
and you want to live your life a certain way. You want to choose
when to marry, and who to marry. But all of a sudden - from
nowhere – your family decides that they should decide for you,
and force you to marry someone else: someone much older, someone
you’d never want to marry if the choice was yours to make.
How would that make you feel?
Quite like this – except on a much larger scale – there are
schemes...

Two weeks ago, a young girl left a Bar in Guwahati. A gang of 18 men set on her, dragged her onto the road by her hair, ripped off her clothes, yanked up her vest and tugged at her bra, and molested her. She was crying for help from the passing cars all the while. They were laughing and smiling, staring into the several cameras that filmed them. One of those cameras belonged to a News Channel’s reporter and camera man. Welcome to India: the country where a woman can be a president, but must fe...

Ten years ago, a history lesson at school on the Second World War and a lost opportunity to participate in a Model UN session owing to a health setback decided the career front of the funny trajectory that is my life.
I decided I would join the United Nations.
The lure was magnetic- I would stand as a representative of my country, or of an oppressed people. I would work with grass-root organizations and proffer them the benefits of humanitarian aid and assistance. I would be their voice. I woul...

War, conflict and all kinds of armed battle have horrible impacts. Society is torn apart, often having to be rebuilt from the grassroots. People find themselves crushed by injury, their means of livelihood being thwarted by an exchange of fire and their lives itself, smashed to smithereens with them left to pick up the pieces. But of the lot, women are known to be the worst sufferers of conflict.
As report after report seems to underline the fact, the trend still continues in the same direction....

For years together now, and even as I pen this piece, the world is peppered with people whose lives are spent staring hunger in its face, as their lifestyles are seduced by poverty and illness. Ample rhetoric has been around, as leader after leader pledges himself to eradicate world poverty, world hunger, and uplift masses in need of monetary and social rehabilitation. All that remains, however, is either a leader whose efforts have been so miniscule that they were virtually intangible, or a lea...

[Before plunging into the text of my post, I'd like to offer you a little background. I work with the Women in War Zones International, which is an organization that is devoted to telling personal stories of women in areas of conflict in order to promote women’s human rights and health, prevent war crimes and achieve victory over abuse of women living in war zones. The effort originally began as a documentary film by the same name, but soon became a full fledged project. Those of you who are i...

Somalia has been touted as a failed state, a state that has spiralled downwards on all fronts-political, economic and social. With famines, droughts, pirates and warlords, all that remains of the state itself is a meagre cadaver. Arguably, one may believe that a state itself is not responsible for the way nature plays with it. However, the Somali problem goes a lot deeper than meets the eye. Nature has been unkind, no doubt, what with droughts being an exceedingly common feature in the state. Ho...

Humanitarian intervention has become a buzz word of sorts. But is it accepted in international law? Can a state intervene in another state's affairs on any ground? How is a state to determine whether its intervention is capable of bringing about the change it wants to see? Who is to decide if a situation requiring intervention exists in the first place?
“The first question that comes to mind about humanitarian intervention, is if it exists”, said Noam Chomsky. In a world that houses Weste...

The use of children as soldiers has been universally condemned as abhorrent, hortative and unacceptable. Despite such a move, a tumultuous multitude of children have fought and died in conflicts around the world. Child soldiers live under harsh conditions, are deprived of food, education and healthcare, all of which are essential for their growth and well-being. They are almost always treated brutally, subjected to beatings and humiliating treatment. Punishments for mistakes or desertion are oft...

TheNomadThinks

I am me.

Member since September 4, 2011

9 Posts

Life, India

Voices of Youth (VOY) was founded in 1995 as UNICEF’s online place for young people to learn more about issues affecting their world. Today, VOY is a vibrant community of youth bloggers from all over the world, offering inspiring, original insight and opinion on a variety of topics. Everyone is welcome to write, film, comment and engage in discussions. Let’s go!